


After One's Own Heart

by gootarts



Category: Umineko no Naku Koro ni | When the Seagulls Cry
Genre: 1000 year olds that look like kids are out 1000 year olds that look like milfs are in, F/F, Vow renewal, blood sports, canon typical lambdabern, some part of this probably counts as animal death, the m rating is for violent content, there's death but it's not permanent, this is obviously not a model you want to base your actual relationships on
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2019-06-10
Packaged: 2020-04-23 21:15:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19159126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gootarts/pseuds/gootarts
Summary: Marriage between the witches of the senate is less about tradition and more about spectacle.





	After One's Own Heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PlumTea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlumTea/gifts).



> Had this idea sitting on the backburner for a while, and it was Ellie's birthday, so I wrote it! Happy birthday, Ellie! Thanks for beta reading all of my nonsense for the past couple years.

The witch who drafted the material that would later become the Senate’s official marriage license was a naive idealist. Those were the only words in existence that could describe such a phenomenon so clearly; the kind of bland, tasteless person who believed in such fantasies as _do not kill your partner,_ or _do not strike others._

Absolutely boring, and just as true, meant that the vast majority of witches simply could not marry. It was not a question of gender, nor of caste; simply a fact that, in the vast sea of fragments in a timeless ocean, pain could be meaningless. Or, perhaps, it could be the single, bloody cure for boredom; suffering and pain were simply breaks in the endless boredom of existence, one of the few remedies to the dullness of everyday life. Naturally, one would want to share such a cure with their partner. Thus, in a way, getting married under the Witch Senate was like a glowing neon sign, stating something akin to the following: _I like plain bread,_ or _books are nice,_ or even the more controversial _that fragment with all the decapitated heads was boring._

That sort of void, of course, was naturally filled. Witches, being witches, chose whichever fragments they wished to partake in the strange, eccentric ceremony known as marriage, picking and choosing at them like a sommelier chooses wine. It was for that reason that, aside from game boards, weddings were strange, extravagant events. They were not the listless, dull ceremonies of the human world, filled with half-listening to somebody drone on and on about religion as the participants wait, listening to muffled _I’m boreds_ from the children nearby. No, witch weddings were _spectacles_. Beautiful, deadly spectacles, the rice thrown in the air replaced with blood.

Such a spectacle was about to begin; humans with the heads of goats were slowly filling the colosseum in some backwater fragment that had never really progressed past the iron age. The hewn rock, worn down from centuries of humans excitedly filling the seats, was in dire need of repair. But then again, it had been so for centuries, and it was not the focus. No, the focus was on the center, a depressed pit filled with bones bleached white from the sun. Any flesh that may have lingered on them had been picked clean by the vultures floating above the stadium eons ago.

That scene was what Lady Lambdadelta saw when she entered from one of the entryways, slowly fingering the thread around her neck. It was a cheap thing, twine tied into a makeshift necklace for a neck of a girth several times her own, the only thing on it a single ring and a knife. The ring was dull iron, the single item she kept that was not some form of gaudy. If anybody had asked, it was the type of thing that was more at home in an old medieval fragment than on a witch such as herself. 

But, it was hers, her solitary thing that was both hers and Bern’s. Back on Rokkenjima, Beatrice had once bragged that she, the arbiter of life and death, could revive and kill somebody endlessly until she had an ocean of golden drops, those last drops of blood from a corpse. That ring was the same way. Solid iron, made entirely from the fragments of it in Bern’s blood as she was killed over and over again.

Naturally, her beloved Bern had one that matched, along with the knife, razor sharp and tied next to the ring. Bern, too, entered the stadium, the sun falling upon her beautiful form. No matter what type of form she took, she was always breathtaking; this form was older, carefully stalking across bone and skull more like a panther than a human, her black dress absorbing all that hit it, a miniature black hole rent into thread and cloth, locking in her gaze. Ah, how she wanted that beautiful, entrancing dress, to tear it to shreds, to soak it in her blood as a bloody baptism of her new form.

Lambda, too, was changed. A simple white dress, her body changed from a child’s to one more similar to her piece in that old game, set in Hinamizawa; middling thirties, medium-length blonde hair, lazily parted to the side as her feet slowly, purposefully walked forwards.

The bones were, admittedly, a pain. They looked gorgeous, yes, and they contributed nicely to the spectacle, but the fact that they had to do this barefoot meant that she felt small bone shards pierce her foot with every step. Ah, but then again, Bern was feeling it too, right? The feeling of bone crunching underfoot every time she moved, the sensation of sharp fragments drawing blood as she stepped on them, running bright crimson down the remnants.

Ugh, drawing blood before the ritual even really began was supposed to be bad luck. It wasn’t something she really cared about-the ritual was really just a big, bloody backdrop more than anything-but still! Anything for her and Bern had to be perfect, especially something as special as this. The two of them had trawled the sea of fragments for ages to find something, just a single fragment, worthy of this event. A kind of world that had a intricate, lethal ritual for two lovers wishing to prove their bond to one another. The ceremony, only ever used for high-class weddings and executions alike, had just the right balance of killer grace and gaudiness. For executions, the poor condemned soul was put in the ring with a sort of prize fighter, the kind of person who had been fighting in these things for years. As for weddings, the ceremony would stop just before the participants died. It was a measure of trust, in that way. That you could literally leave your life in your partner's hands. Though, for them, that was already a given, in a strange way. If some witch got the idea that they would be the ones to kill Bernkastel, they would soon find their limbs strewn across countless fragments in an endless sea. So, perhaps, for them, the ritual was more like a mortal's vow renewal than a wedding. A reaffirmation of one's dedication to a partner, written in the language of death. 

And thus, such a spectacle began with Bern. It started as a hologram, a beautiful, star-colored sheen around Bern’s body formed into the shape of a massive jaguar. The dress, of course, stayed put; but the string around her neck began to float along the contours of that indescribable star-colored illusion. In the span of a nanosecond, Bern’s lithe human limbs were no longer visible. No, in her place was a massive beast.

It made her smile for just a second. No matter what happened, beautiful, lovely Bern was still Bern. And there was no animal that quite was _Bern_ like a cat was, from her feral slitted eyes to those massive claws poised to rip out her heart. Ah, just the sight of those twinkling, jewel-box eyes on her made her want to gouge them out and turn them into pendants to decorate her chest, her neck. It would mean Bern's loving, spiteful gaze was hers, eternally. Two eyes, two witches, tied together by an ancient, unbreakable red string dyed bright red in blood. Even without any spectacle, that was the truth the two of them had reached eons ago.

But, even so, that transformation was half the ritual; Bern’s other half, well, that was her, wasn’t it? Half this story, half this event. Even now, Bern was motionless as she waited, scintillating green eyes, miniature diamonds ripped from the earth, locked on her grinning face and awaited her move, as if expecting something.

So she gave her something to expect, as she kneeled down on a single knee, a hand on her chest. “C’mon Bern, you can’t just dive into thing like this without even saying something first! Foreplay’s important!” With a loud, whooping laugh, she clasped her ring, raising it high above her head as that same aura surrounded her for a split second before creating its own form; a large bear.

Witches, almost universally, chose and aesthetic and stuck with it, and Lambdadelta was no exception; however, unlike most others, it did not revolve around an animal but instead, as Bern put it, _a love of gaudiness that was just like a magpie_. Ah, how she loved her as she said that, giving a disgusted snarl as she had found her favorite dried plums stuffed to bursting with konpeito candies. But, for her, none of the animals could quite match the beat of her strange tempo. The closest she had ever come to one would have been a flamingo, the kind of beautiful bird most heavily associated with tacky lawn ornaments. But such a thing could never match a jaguar in combat. Very few things could. At least, that had been her thoughts as she roared, rearing up to challenge her over the roaring of the crowd.

The bones under her feet no longer pierced through her flesh as they were ground to powder underneath her as Bern slowly stalked the outside of the area. The sun glistened off her fur, and she could see the outline of the muscles beneath the skin, shifting the ring and knife from side to side on her thick chest. That was something made a mental note to bring up later, that she only had a big chest as a cat; even if she got punished for it, it would be a sight to savor for millennia afterwards.

Even now, she was still stalking around the arena, just out of reach. It was another reason to choose this form; from the start, it was common knowledge Bern would have chosen a cat. A monster of a creature, able to stalk down prey and kill with a single bite to the neck, with claws to shred through flesh and bone. Few creatures could claim to stand against a monster at parity, save for other monsters. A bear could fend off those sudden lunges for the neck, where a failure meant instant death.

Such was the way cats fought. Watching, stalking, toying with their prey. Waiting for the right moment to strike, anticipating a moment where she could dig those pearly white jaws into her spinal column. Perhaps, if all went well, she could preserve that graceful, lethal head. To cut it off in a single swipe, and mount it above her bed, a timeless monument to this moment. Though, that may have to wait; Bern had chosen that moment to strike as she was absorbed in thought, and in the blink of an eye, she pounced, only to be caught by Lambda’s massive swat, forced to the ground.

This was not like the full-fledged magic fights they’d had in the past. No, this was something more visceral, something they hadn’t done in centuries. There would be no instant death, consciousness wiped out in a fraction of a second if she erred. No, this would be drawn out, like a blood trail on a hunt.

There was an elegance in this type of thing. Something intimate about killing, as you stood over something and plunged a maw full of teeth into their flesh, as you bit deep and pulled your head side to side in long strokes, tearing off chunks of flesh. It tasted divine, that sickly-bitter flavor that she hadn’t truly experienced in centuries as she ducked her head up to swallow, fur and all, letting the salty-fleshy-furry sensation course down her throat.

Bern was screaming now. Or, as much as scream as her body could muster as it bled, bright crimson staining the bones underneath. But, Lambda did not stop. That was the agreement; after all, even if one of them said no, there was only one way for the ritual to end. Only one, one that ended with the bloody corpse of an animal on the ground.

Bern’s breathing was in short, ragged breaths now as her eyes met Lambda’s.

If only she could still speak. She wished that she could’ve taunted Bern then, a laughing _now we’re going to be together forever, my love_ as she bit down on a flank. The neck, with such a beautiful, sculpted collarbone, was avoided. Such a tender place, coursing with life, was to be kept for last as she pulled out the entrails. They slip out with less resistance than she’d think they would, almost as if they were seeking to escape confinement in her body.

Ah, Bern. Beautiful, lovely, Bern, with all several hundred kilograms of tooth and claw, could only howl with pain as her love tore into her skin, into her guts.

And, at the very core of those guts, was a girl. A woman, wearing that same black dress, this time stained with gore, fitted perfectly into the deepest part of the chest. Her hands were intertwined with its heart, squeezing and releasing it to force the heart to beat as her legs were tangled in its guts. She did not move to open her eyes, even as her eternal love pried those sharp, 50-mm long fangs into the chest, ripping a kidney free and swallowing it. But, she did wince, feeling the animal’s pain, but daring not to open her mouth for fear of choking on her own beast’s blood.

She wondered what it felt like. Poor Bern, all alone, both figuratively and metaphorically blind to her next move. Lambda could bite through this form’s leg, or tear off her ears, and she would be none the wiser. But, no; her face in this form, unable anymore to do anything but mewl every time she bit in deeper, was beautiful. The bones of the other beasts that had perished in these same fights, they were slowly being saturated with viscera, even as her mouth bit Bernkastel on the neck, like a mother cat would do to a kitten.

Bern looked like an overstuffed animal cut open with a scalpel as organs that Lambda didn’t even know _existed_ poured out of the cavity, no longer held to the bottom of her chest from gravity to litter the ground below in a crimson flood. A violent shake of her head, and Bernkastel tumbled out, too, hitting the ground with a _crunch_ as the bones beneath her broke.

The heart that tumbled to the ground was rough, leathery, as her fangs tore it apart. Bern slowly wiped her eyes free of blood, stumbling to her feet in front of a massive bear several times her weight. But Lambda did not attack. She would not attack; as much as she would love to devour Bern whole, dress and all, this was part of the ritual. To actually _kill_ her like this, erasing her existence when the two had agreed not to, would leave the kind of sour taste in her mouth that Bern loved, the kind that would haunt her for the rest of eternity. 

So Lambda, in turn, swiped her tongue over Bern’s face, lapping up the liquid coating it as she groaned.

“ _Lambdadelta_.” Lambda licked her face again as she gave that same heart-melting grimace.

It took another couple licks to get her bearings as she came to her senses, staring her down at full height before reaching for the string that miraculously was still around the bear's neck, pulling until it snapped and slipping the ring around her left ring finger.

The knife, as it clattered to the ground, was also picked up. It had a single wicked sharp blade, curved and serrated, created with the sole purpose of cutting through her flesh. Just the thought of it, tearing through everything in her body, made her instinctively shudder in anticipation as Bern raised the blade to her. She didn’t resist the feeling of her flesh shearing and tearing under its force, fire blossoming under her skin from her neck to her hips, forcing her to all fours as the knife got raised once more, this time to the bear’s forehead.

And then everything went black. Lambdadelta was no longer connected to the bear, but by herself. Alone. She could only feel the confines of her own flesh, surrounded by the warm, still pulsating mass of the bear’s body. She could only smell the scent of blood filling her nostrils, could only taste salty iron when she opened her mouth. There was nothing she could see, nothing she could hear. Only silence, like the almost endless hell she had gone through once, eons ago, when she had made a logic error. But, no. This wasn't an error. Bern was here. She could feel the thing's body heaving as it was cut by her knife. As she pawed around the gruesome cavity of the beast for a way out, so too was Bern, trying to break a way in, until she felt the cool wind of the outside on her flesh and a firm arm pulling her out of the flesh. 

Bern was surprisingly gentle as she pushed the corpse away, allowing her into the sunlight as she offered a ring, the one that was around her beast’s neck. The cool iron felt strange, in contrast to the warmth of the blood staining her dress, her hair, every inch of her red, coloring everything in a meter radius the color of death as she stood up.

There was just a single step left in that gruesome, beautiful ceremony as she offered her hand, then her body, to Bernkastel, her one and only love.

 

As the two of them drew in for a final bloody kiss, neither of them heard, smelt, or felt anything of the screaming crowd, pounding the seats and bleating. There was just the two of them, their own single, swirling universe.


End file.
